Well, I had a wonderful time at Benhall Primary School and I must say a big thank you to everyone for making me so welcome. We had great fun in the hall making fantastic, bright masks; all made and coloured for the Click Clack, Crocodile’s Back event. A wonderful teacher, Miss Ruffle (who was completely unruffled by the whole experience) was a great sport and really brought the show to life by donning the pink flamingo hat, banana jacket, and shoe shuffling to Tuxedo Junction.
CC my crocodile puppet spent the day tormenting the children by chomping on pigtails and nibbling ears. He seems to get more and more uncontrollable as the year goes on. I’ll have to send him to our local zoo or even worse, leave him in my travel suitcase until he calms down.
Click on the pictures to make them bigger:
Mid morning, I had the chance of getting nursery to try out my new puppet book CHEESE HUNT with me. The children were so young yet they memorised the chorus no problem and chuckled as mouse munched his way from page to page.
With year 2s, I read The Hunt, for a multi-cultural session and the class followed up with some great work on festival masks and the characters in my story.
Story in a Shoebox!
Then I had the pleasure of judging the Story in a Shoebox competition. Boy that was tough. Too many great designs from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, where a wonderful cut-out of a wardrobe was linked to a wire and lit up every time the door was opened, to a bright, basic, big, red cage with a fluffy lion peering out from inside for Dear Zoo.
But the overall winner for me was a wonderful Charlie and Lola box. Both characters had been cut out and were sitting at a kitchen table with lots of interesting homey things around them, the identifiable Lauren Child designs in the background and the clincher was - the tiny home-made books set neatly on shelves.
All in all a great day and it was sad to say goodbye to everyone at the end.
Have a go yourself
But story in a shoebox is a fantastic idea. You should really try and make one some time, maybe even get your friends to do design one too and guess what the story in the box is about. I’d love to see photos of a story box that you’ve made yourself. I’d whizz the pics up in my gallery for all to enjoy.
It’s just a matter of getting an old shoebox, finding your favourite story and making a special scene that depicts that tale.